A Perth groundskeeper who pestered a healthcare worker and showed her a photo of his DIY penis piercing was told by a sheriff: “You misread the room, very badly.”
David Romeo Bruscaglia’s victim said she feared she was going to be raped when he turned up at her home uninvited and showed her the naked selfie on his phone.
Bruscaglia, 57, was originally charged with stalking the woman at her home near the city’s Crieff Road.
But after a day of evidence at Perth Sheriff Court, he pled guilty to an amended charge of acting in a threatening or abusive way which caused his victim fear or alarm.
Prosecutors agreed there was no a significant sexual element to the offence.
‘Quite proud’
Giving evidence from behind a screen, the complainer, a 50-year-old healthcare worker, said she met Bruscaglia when she moved in to the block in 2019.
“He was the ground maintenance person. He was always about, doing work in the complex.
“All the neighbours knew him.”
She said their interactions were “friendly” at first but later turned “a bit weird”.
One day, he turned up at her door and when she answered, he stepped inside.
She said she had not invited him in.
“That was the time he told me he had pierced his penis.
“I got the feeling he was quite proud that he had done it by himself.”
The woman said she felt “disgusted.”
Showed photo on his phone
Bruscaglia returned the next day and took out his phone to show her the nude photo.
“I honestly felt my blood going cold.
“I felt that I was about to be raped.
“I tried to make a joke about it and get him out of the house as quickly as possible.”
She said he had made comments in the days and weeks leading up to the incident.
He said he had not been having sex with his wife and told the woman she was “fit for her age”.
“I had spoken to my managers about this,” she said.
“They thought I was being groomed.
“It wasn’t right for him to be talking to me that way. He didn’t know me that well.”
The woman said she had been making coffee when he showed her the photo.
“I turned around and the phone was in my face,” she said.
“He had been making comments that he hadn’t been having sex, that I’m a single woman and now he’s putting a photo of his penis in my face.
“I did what I was always taught (at work) – to try and make a joke out of the situation and get him to leave.”
The court heard Bruscaglia returned to her flat days later to apologise.
Police interview
Asked by solicitor David Holmes if she had asked to see the photo because she was interested in the jewellery his client had used, the woman said: “I don’t wear jewellery and I absolutely did not say that.
“I felt threatened. It’s not normal for someone to pull out a picture of their penis.
“I don’t even see that from my patients.”
Bruscaglia admitted to police he said to her he had “pierced my knob” and confirmed it was a photo of his penis but added: “It could have been anyone’s.”
Asked how she reacted, he told police: “She said ‘oh my god, look at the size of that piercing’.”
He said the woman was a friend and insisted he was not looking for a relationship.
‘Significant error of judgement’
On the second day of the trial, Mr Holmes confirmed his client was pleading guilty to a “substantially amended complaint”.
Bruscaglia admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner on December 1 2023 by attending her home uninvited and showing her an intimate photograph.
Mr Holmes said his client, who lost his job of 22 years after he was charged, is now working as a cleaner.
Sheriff Clair McLachlan told Bruscaglia: “You effectively misread the room very badly.”
She said: “I can see how this situation arose.
“However, it did give rise to a very significant error of judgement on your part and you saw the the distress that caused the complainer.”
Bruscaglia, of McDonald Court, Perth, was fined £500.
He was told he must stay away from his victim for a year under a non-harassment order.
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